


The Angel's Gift

by defractum (nyargles)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angels, Biblical References, Blasphemy, Christmas, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyargles/pseuds/defractum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(A nativity story AU featuring the angel R, the virgin Enjolras and three dozen sheep.)</p><p>“You are to be his chosen one, to bear the child that will free his people.” R beamed at him. “Isn’t that lovely?”</p><p>Silence reigned.</p><p>“To bear a child?” repeated the virgin Enjolras. “Is the Lord God Almighty perhaps aware that feminine though I look, I am a man?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Angel's Gift

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to hell for this, aren't I?

On a cold and frosty winter’s night, an angel of the Lord came to the virgin Enjolras. “The glorious leader in red,” the angel greeted him.

“Do you get paid for your service to the Lord?” asked the virgin Enjolras.

“I bear the Lord’s favour,” said the angel. “I can smite entire armies with one blow of my flaming sword. I can fly across the entire world in but a second. The sky would not be large enough to hold my true form. Is that not reward in itself?”

The virgin Enjolras tilted his head thoughtfully. “Do you get rest days?”

“I need no rest,” said the angel, “for my task is never finished.”

“Even the Lord had a rest on the seventh day,” points out Enjolras. “Would you like to join us at our next meeting to talk about the oppression of angels?”

“Oh, all right,” said the angel, and floated down to touch the earth. “Only because you’re so pretty.”

~

The virgin Enjolras was the first to arrive. Well, technically, the angel was the first to arrive, but he was keeping himself invisible for the time being, wanting to survey the meeting and determine what it would be like before committing.

It was not long before the virgin Enjolras’s three wisest companions joined him. “Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jehan,” said the virgin Enjolras. “Have you ever thought about the rights of angels?”

“I really cannot say that I have,” said Combeferre. “Is this something we must consider now?”

“It must be a dreary task. They are not like men,” said Jehan as he dabbed frankincense onto his friends, for the barn of the Musain Inn was cold and musty and smelled of manure. Alas, the other inns and pubs had not the room to accommodate so many, particularly in this winter of the census and so they had been forced to move their meetings here.

The virgin Enjolras frowned. “What do you mean?”

“They are not creatures of free will,” said Jehan sadly. “They are created for the sole purpose of serving God.”

“Why suddenly the religious fervour, Enjolras?” asked Courfeyrac. “This does not seem like your usual self.”

“I met an angel,” said the virgin Enjolras calmly, as if happenstances with angels were commonplace. “It gave me cause to consider his plight as well as our own, for do we not wish equality for all? I asked him to come to the meeting tonight.”

“Hello,” said the angel, blinking into visibility.

“Ah, my friends,” said the virgin Enjolras. “The one I was talking about just now: the angel… er, Gabriel? Michael?”

“Raphael, actually,” said the angel, “but you can call me R.”

“A real angel,” murmured Jehan in astonishment.

Courfeyrac pinched his arm. “Is this a prank, Enjolras? No, it is too grand to be one, surely…”

“R,” said Combeferre, “Might you consider dimming your light? My eyes are about to burn out of their sockets.”

And surely enough, the glow around his head diminished, which was fortunate, for the virgin Enjolras was starting to get a headache. “Well met, frail mortals,” said R with a small smile.

The company then was interrupted, as Joly and Musichetta appeared, stamping their feet against the brisk cold and bringing warm greetings to each of them. “Is Bossuet not here yet?” asked Musichetta, her face a-worry. “It ought to be much quicker to get here from the fields than from where we were in the town.”

“Perhaps they are lost – again,” said Joly. “I could go out and search for them?”

“No need. I can guide them,” said R, stretching out his wings and brushing the edges of the barn. In one moment he was there and the next, he had flown across the sky to where the shepherds were, leaving the virgin Enjolras to explain his presence to Joly and Musichetta.

“I could have sworn it was that way,” said Bossuet, squinting in the darkness up the street.

“Behold, mortals!” said R, appearing in front of them and forgetting to dim his light again.

The shepherds fell to the ground, mostly because they had been cultivating their night vision for the last three hours and then all three of them were blinded in a single moment. Three dozen sheep bleated in panic, and started running in every direction.

“Argh, go away!” yelled Feuilly.

“Sorry,” said the angel R. “It takes a little getting used to.”

“The sheep,” said Bossuet woefully, trying to run after six at the same time and mostly winding in circles.

The angel R gently flapped his wings, and herded them all together. “Apologies. I shall ask them to be obedient if you wish. Anyhow. I am an angel of the Lord! Call me R. And I have been sent by the virgin Enjolras to guide you to his meeting.”

Marius’s face lit up. “Oh, that would be mighty helpful.”

(“The _virgin_ Enjolras?” muttered Feuilly.

“I knew it,” replied Bossuet.)

R pointed. “You see the house over there? It’s just beyond that.”

“Which one?” asked Feuilly, who was still mostly blind and was only seeing in little bursts of light from within his eyelids.

“The one with the crooked chimney,” said R, and shook his head when Marius pointed. “No, the thin crooked chimney, not the – no, the one to the left of that – no. Perhaps it would be better if I left a sign?” R said eventually. He plucked one of the stars out of the sky and tossed it carelessly toward the Musain Inn in a blaze of fire and heat. “That one.”

When the angel R returned to to the Musain Inn, the company’s numbers had swelled yet again. “This is Eponine, Cosette and Bahorel,” said the virgin Enjolras, pointing to two more women and a man with a black eye. “And this is the angel I was telling you about.”

“R,” said the angel R. “Would you like me to heal your wounds?”

Bahorel started visibly when he realised he was being addressed. “You can do that?”

“Well, Michael’s far better at it than I, but I suffice.” The angel R blew into his eye and suddenly it was unswollen.

Bahorel exclaimed, and gingerly pressed his fingers to his face. “You will be a fine friend to have around, methinks.”

“We are here!” The door was thrown open as Marius stood in the doorway. A huge gust of wind accompanied him and the inhabitants of the Inn yelled at Marius. “Sorry, sorry. We are here, finally. Thanks to R – oh, Cosette, I did not know you would be here.” He froze in the doorway, and it was only with a grumble and a shove from Feuilly that he stepped inside.

“And me,” said Eponine sourly. “I happen to be here too.”

“O–of course. Hello, Eponine,” said Marius awkwardly.

And now the angel R realised why it was necessary to have such a big space for so few people, for the three dozen sheep flooded the inside, providing much appreciated warmth. The angel R was just glad that his sense of smell was not similar to the mortals’.

“But look. Why is the angel here in the first place?” asked Eponine with a frown. (Though, the frown may have been because the sheep kept trying to chew at the hem of her robe.)

“ I – Oh. I confess I do not know.” The virgin Enjolras blinked, and turned to R.

“Oh! I forgot. I came to deliver a message, but you distracted me with thoughts of days off.”

“A message? From the _Lord_?”

“Yes. You are to be his chosen one, to bear the child that will free his people.” R beamed at him. “Isn’t that lovely?”

Silence reigned.

“To bear a child?” repeated the virgin Enjolras. “Is the Lord God Almighty perhaps aware that feminine though I look, I am a man?”

“So?”

“I – _so_?” The virgin Enjolras looked around at his friends for help, and found none for even the good Combeferre was hiding his laughter in the shoulder of Courfeyrac. “Men cannot … bear children.”

“Well, they are not _that_ bad,” said the angel R.

“No – Courfeyrac, please stop laughing. No, I mean that men are incapable, physically, of carrying a child.” The virgin Enjolras looked at a loss, for he did not know how to describe it better.

Fortunately, the angel R seemed to have caught on. “Ah, I see. Well, I would not know. Angels have no genders, nor have we children. Perhaps we could compare the anatomies of humans and angels sometime, fair virgin Enjolras.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

The virgin Enjolras spluttered. “Will you _stop_ calling me that?”

“Perhaps I shall when you are no longer a virgin,” said the angel R. “Do let me help with that. You can educate me on the reproductive processes of humans.”

The virgin Enjolras raised his head to the ceiling in despair. “Lord, give me _strength_ to deal with this.”

“Unfortunately, all the Lord has given you is _me_ , though feel free to grow your lovely hair longer.” The angel R took a seat on a sheep, and tried to think about where it had gone wrong. “I think," the angel R said slowly, "Perhaps, I have got my virgins mixed up.”

“Mixed up?” asked Courfeyrac incredulously. “You are an angel; how does that happen?”

“The day I got my orders, I may have had a little too much wine,” admits the angel R, feeding the sheep with grass procured from inside his white robe.

“ _Wine_ in Heaven?” asks Bahorel, perking up.

The angel R blinked. “But of course. Wine is a celebratory drink after all, and Heaven is nought but one huge celebration.”

“What about the actual chosen one?” said Combeferre, cutting in before Bahorel could revise his religious leanings. “The one chosen by the Lord to bear a child? Will that not happen now?”

“Well, one of the others will probably pick up the slack,” said the angel R, uncaringly. “Gabriel’s very good at that sort of thing.

“A chosen one to free the people, and it is _not_ Enjolras?” said Joly, clutching his chest dramatically. “How could it be?!”

“We do not need the grace of God to succeed in our campaign!” declared Enjolras, head held high. “We will do it with nought but the sweat and blood of ordinary people.”

The angel R rubbed his hands together. “Well said. Now, my pretty one. Why don’t you tell me more about days off?” And with that, the angel R propped up his feet on a different sheep, and settled in to listen to his new friends.

**Author's Note:**

> Have yourself a merry blasphemous Christmas if you celebrate it! Come yell at me on [tumblr](http://defractum.tumblr.com)!
> 
> This fic also now has podfic!!!!! On [AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2499080) by the lovely, fantastic aristos!!! :3


End file.
